


The Boy Who Was Theirs

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 19:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13864425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Post Ghouli about watching William on the security camera vision.





	The Boy Who Was Theirs

The screen light flickers across her face. He watches from the kitchen. As the frames move he alternates between worry for her and the desperate fascination of watching the same few minutes of interaction over and over. Parenting, frame by frame. She got the lab techs to improve the quality but he knows she still wants to scrub away the blur from his face. He does too. And there’s no erasing the image of Jackson in the hospital. At the gas station he was someone else.

But on the video he’s William.

She touches his hair, his face. Does she want to tell him to get a haircut? Mulder wants to remind her about his own bangs back in the day. But he’s stopped in his tracks. This kid is theirs. It’s insane. This is William. 

This is William.

He didn’t sleep that first night. He held her against him, listening to the furious beat of her heart, listening to her tell the stories of when William was a baby, the time he missed. He knew the stories word for word, but now they took on a new life, as though their son’s life had become a movie and he was watching it being acted out. He let her talk until she stilled. Until she gripped his wrist and pulled his hand down between her legs, until she shuddered against him and finally let herself rest.

When she told him about the visions, his instant reaction was a streak of irrational jealousy. He was the believer. How many cases had he suggested psychic connection, telepathy, shape-shifters? How many times had she rolled her eyes, chuffed at him, crossed her arms. Missed the action? And yet she knew, she knew it was William sending her messages. She watched the video and saw the boy who was theirs. Yet she had spoken to the old man. He’d told her once, ‘after all you’ve seen, after all the evidence, why can’t you believe?’ and she simply said that she was afraid.

He’s glad that fear has gone now. Letting it go would have been hard for her. What else could drive you on, other than fear or guilt or pain? How do people live without those things in their hearts? He heard her say to the body in the hospital that she thought the hardest thing was letting him go, to know she would miss his whole life. But it turned out that wasn’t the hardest thing. Didn’t even come close. And now it doesn’t seem that hard. He did all right, William. He survived. He’s still surviving. He will survive.

He pulls out a chair to sit slightly behind her. She smiles at him and he presses play again, over her shoulder. They watch. Her hand drops to his knee. He covers it. Presses play again. She lifts his hand and together their fingers trace her stomach. It’s hard to imagine now that this boy on the screen, William, was cocooned inside all those years before; that she was soft and round and replete.

“I had ultra sounds at all the appropriate markers,” she says. “Twelve weeks, for a dating scan and the Nuchal Translucency scan for chromosomal abnormalities, like Down’s Syndrome, then again at 18 weeks for the full anomaly scan. I told myself he looked like you,” she says, chuffing out a half-laugh.

“Grey and blurry?” he says, nuzzling her neck.

“He had a strong profile,” she whispers, watching the exchange again. Then she adds, “has.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Scully.” As she said the other night, sometimes words are so inadequate.

She turns and presses a light kiss to his lips. “I know. But look at him, Mulder. That grey blurry scrap of humanity is alive and strong and giving out life advice to his birth parents. That’s something.”

He kisses her back, harder. “I’m going to miss him all over again.”

“But I think he’ll find a way to keep in touch.”

The skin on her cheek is soft, damp from tears. He wipes at it with his thumb. “And you’re no longer afraid to believe. That’s something too.”

She chuckles into his chest. “You tried so hard, Mulder. But you’ve been beaten to it by your own son.”

The laptop bleeps, and he clicks to open the email. “Do you recognise this address, Scully?”

She reads it, “Little.Elf@gmail.com, it’s not one I know. There’s an image attached. Open it.” 

It’s a command. He looks at her. Sees the strength of belief in her eyes and clicks the attachment. The photo unfolds before them. A snow globe. Inside is a tall man with dark hair, a woman with red hair, an infant nestled in her arms and behind them a bright orange ball of light, studded with darker spots and a ribbon of gold looped out from one side. She gasps.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I think it’s a solar flare,” she replies. “And I think it was taken using a spectroheliograph.”

“George Ellery Hale,” he whispers. “The Little Elf.”

She grabs his hand and squeezes it. “I’m going to miss him all over again.”


End file.
